


Carcosa

by Aces_and_Roses



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 14:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21254867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aces_and_Roses/pseuds/Aces_and_Roses
Summary: The sky was rapidly darkening as Muriel stepped out of the pub, twilight only serving to further emphasize the wrongness of the landscape around her as the twin suns sank ever-so-slowly below the horizon.Written for day four of Rusty Quill Gaming Girls Week!





	Carcosa

The sky was rapidly darkening as Muriel stepped out of the pub, twilight only serving to further emphasize the wrongness of the landscape around her as the twin suns sank ever-so-slowly below the horizon. It took her but moments to identify the twisted skyline she’d seen through the window of the pub, so strange in their structure and shape, and once she did, she was afraid.

(No. She _should_ have been afraid. _Should have been_ was such a different feeling, or more accurately, lack thereof.)

Everything around her was so new, so vastly different from what she’d known before, and yet so much the same. Even as the human within her cried out that it was _wrong, wrong, wrong_, the artist in her told her it was _beautiful_. She was entranced, and if it hadn’t been for the sound of her brother crying out in terror next to her, she had no doubt she would have wandered off into the wastes alone. In all honesty, she still wasn’t certain she wouldn’t.

To her right, she could see Johnson and Poppins. Johnson, collapsed on the ground, his face a mess of snot and tears as he stared out at the not-London (Carcosa, her mind helpfully supplied, the play had been set in Carcosa) sprawling out in front of them. Poppins, crouched next to him, attempting to coerce some sense back into him, his gruff words accompanied by his best attempts at grounding touch, though it didn’t seem to be working.

To her left, Julie and Herbie. Herbie, shaking violently as Julie wrapped one arm tightly around his shoulders. Julie, whose expression was deceptively serene until Muriel noticed the utter terror in his eyes.

They all seemed so… unimportant, now, in the face of this. Muriel turned back to the city, taking a step forward, tilting her head as though that would change anything. As though the slight change in perspective would somehow let her see home again, would somehow _take _her there.

(But did she even _want _to go home, when the other option was a life lived amongst such beauty as this?)

It was possible she simply wanted to observe the wonder of this place from every possible angle, she could no longer be sure. Something about it - the near-organic shape of the buildings, the sight of the twin suns, the dark stars slowly flickering to life overhead, the distinct impression of _home_ it engendered within her - made it difficult to think clearly. Or perhaps it was exactly the opposite; perhaps she had been robbed of clarity by the only world she’d ever known for so long that, once she had it, she didn’t know what to do.

Perhaps she would never truly know the answer to that. The idea didn’t bother her nearly as much as she knew it should.

It would be night soon, that much was clear, and none of them had any way of knowing what would emerge when the light faded, what eldritch horrors would set upon them the moment the suns set. They should get back inside, take shelter at least. But right then, at that moment, Muriel found herself rooted in place, gaze locked on the exquisitely terrifying landscape in front of her.

She felt a hand grip hers, a tug on her arm, pulling her toward the pub, away from that beautiful unknown, and had to resist the urge to pull away. “Mumu, please, we should-” Herbie sniffed loudly, his tears so evident in his voice, so obvious, the way they’d always been. “We need to get inside, or- or somewhere else, somewhere other than here.” And when she didn’t react, another tug, “Come _on_, Mumu.”

She finally managed to tear her eyes away, looking over to her brother, to Julien, to Poppins and Johnson. They all looked so afraid, and she didn’t - couldn’t - understand why. Couldn’t they see how wonderful it all was, how breathtaking?

“We can’t, Herbert,” she heard Julien say, in the sort of tone one uses to calm a spooked animal, one she’d only ever heard him use when Herbie was very, very frightened. “The theatre, it’s- it’s on fire. We can’t go back in, we have to- we have to…”

Herbie’s hand clutched hers, almost painfully tight, as he whimpered, and she saw Julie run a gentling hand down his arm (making quiet shushing noises, as though that would be enough to soothe him).

“We-we'll never be able to get back home, will we?” Herbie whispered, clinging to Muriel and Julie desperately as the three of them stood, staring at the unnatural skyline, backed by the red light of the setting suns. “We’re stuck here.”

_“Why would we ever want to?”_ Muriel didn’t say, no matter how true the statement rang within her, how _right_ she felt, looking out at the strange cityscape of Carcosa. Instead, she took a step forward, away from the burning theatre, from everything she’d ever known before. Toward this new world, so terrifyingly beautiful in its wrongness.

In that moment, Muriel knew nothing was ever going to be normal again. But that was alright, really; she had never been one for normal.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at redactedquill if y'all want to shout about the Cthulhu special with me.


End file.
